Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff ,Right center walks in with Alamo Heights mayor Bobby Rosenthal as Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff and Sheriff Javier Salazar hosted more than 20 mayors, city managers and police ... more

Photo: Ronald Cortes, For The San Antonio Express News

Tour of new intake center renews rift between officials

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A tour of the soon-to-open $33 million Justice Intake and Assessment Center on Wednesday renewed a rift between Bexar County and San Antonio officials.

The two entities have had trouble squaring differences over how the new facility should look and operate, to the point that the city plans to continue using the old magistrate’s office rather than move. Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff compared the facility Wednesday to a “third world country.”

Police Chief William McManus believes the new facility’s “processing flow” would keep his officers off the street for too long by requiring them to maintain custody of suspects while the officer fills out certain paperwork and the suspect goes through a medical screening.

He said the county also designed the facility without consulting the city, resulting in a “variety of issues” the county has failed to “rectify to our satisfaction.”

“After it was designed and planned, it was presented to us as, ‘Here you go,’” McManus said Wednesday. “And, after we looked at it, after we consulted with groups of officers who make a lot of arrests, there were pages of complaints.”

Meanwhile, county officials say they have set up the intake facility to get officers back onto the street quickly. And they insist the city had input from the beginning.

Wolff believes the city should consider the facility’s other benefits, like its capacity to use “open booking” — where suspects are placed in a waiting room and can call family to seek bail. County officials say the building, set to open in September or October, will allow officers to better divert non-violent people to pre-trial programs.

“The criminal justice system is not just about running the police officer in and running his a-- out,” Wolff said Wednesday after leading a group of mayors and city managers from suburban cities in Bexar County through the nearly finished facility.

Mike Lozito, the county’s judicial services director, disputed McManus’ claim that officers would have to maintain control of detainees for too long.

He said former Sheriff Susan Pamerleau proposed that suspects stay with the arresting officer until the officer submits certain paperwork, but SAPD “flat out told us that was unacceptable.”

Sheriff Javier Salazar, after taking office in 2017, worked out a new process with District Attorney Nico LaHood to avoid that problem, Lozito said. The issue effectively remains unresolved, deputy city manager Erik Walsh said.

McManus said the city would have to find a new processing center regardless, because the new facility can’t handle its Class C misdemeanors, the lowest criminal offense level.

Lozito said the facility had initially planned to include a space for the misdemeanors, then scrapped it when the city made clear it didn’t want to partner on the facility.

But the space couldn’t have accommodated public intoxication cases anyway, Lozito said. An idea to move those cases to the Center for Health Care Services — which contracts with the city — didn’t work because the center hesitated to become a “lockup facility,” Walsh said.

In September 2016, city and county staff met in September 2016 to review “space and design needs,” according to meeting records, and at least three more times in early 2017. But when SAPD brought forward concerns about the building’s design — specifically over the need for more space in the Class C processing and medical screening areas — Walsh said county staff told the city that a construction company had already received a building contract, and the county could not make further changes.

Records show that Lozito and SAPD Deputy Chief Jimmy Reyes exchanged emails in November 2016, in which Lozito sent Reyes a copy of the facility’s floor plans. After not receiving word from Reyes for a month, Lozito followed up on Dec. 8, asking, “Chief, have you had an opportunity to meet to discuss the floor plan and processing?”

Reyes responded that SAPD and city staff planned to review the plans the following week. Those floor plans included an area for officers to process Class C misdemeanors, according to a copy provided to the Express-News.

Walsh said that throughout the process, moving into the new facility “felt like trying to fit a size 12 foot into a size 10 shoe” because of space limitations.

“I think this is probably going to be better for everybody,” Walsh said of the plans to operate separate facilities. “It’s going to allow the county to move into a new facility (to handle) 38 percent of (Bexar County’s) arrestees. And it allows us to keep officers on the street.”

Once magistrated, the city’s arrestees will still be transferred to the new county facility, at which point they will become property of the county. McManus and Salazar are meeting this week to work out details of the transition, Walsh said.